When eating while standing or in a dynamic environment such as on a boat, it is often difficult to simultaneously hold a plate of food, eat from that plate, and support a beverage. Instead, one must try to find a place to safely place the beverage while eating, and this often leads to spillage and other accidents.
As a result, there have been several attempts to develop mechanical systems that can aid in safely supporting a beverage container without use of hands. Such systems are described in, for example: US Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0249520; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,919,381; 8,025,146; and 9,578,954. Nevertheless, each of these systems suffers from one or more of the following disadvantages: being overly complicated, requiring the use of purpose-specific beverage containers, being expensive to produce, and being inconvenient to use.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for improved apparatus for supporting beverages that address these shortcomings.